Of Course America Runs on Misogyny
Social science used to be more fun, I imagine, during Freud’s epoch — when it was just developing as a discipline — when any white man of sufficient privilege could dunk his head into a bucket of cocaine and come up with a totalizing theory of how vaginas work and people believed him.
Actually — you know what — as it turns out not much has changed.
Because it’s 2016 and no one takes women seriously.
You know how I know?
That’s right. If the franchise extended only to men, a fascist who brags about being so beyond reproach that he can commit sexual assault with impunity would be our next President.
But this doesn’t just happen, you know.
This isn’t a fluke.
This isn’t a glitch in the matrix.
This is how the hurt machine was designed to work.
Every woman knows that that in order for mediocre dicks like Trump to stay hard, lesser men need to help hold women down.
Lesser men benefit from the delusion that misogyny is rare.
They benefit from the delusion that sexism is just some rotten apples.
They benefit from our willing complacency not to ask Siri some basic questions like:
“Siri, why do men still ask what she was wearing?”
“Siri, what is Red Pill?”
“Siri, why are so many single mothers in poverty?”
“Siri, why don’t cops investigate rape kits?”
“Siri, why do so many women stay in abusive relationships?”
Siri will tell you how many times a day women experience systemic domination if you’re prepared to ask the right questions. You can’t escape the reality that men’s hatred of women is embroidered into every facet of our lives. The answer is at your fingertips.
Men who continue to insist that misogyny is rare or that #notallmen hate women need to take so many seats.
Because revenge porn is a thriving industry.
Because patriarchy fluffers like Richard Dawkins leverage their absurd reach to challenge the social legitimacy of safe spaces and trigger warnings.
And because we have a man running for President who said he feels entitled to the violation of women.
Fuck Christmas — the war on women wages on.
Donald Trump exists because millions of men in America think nothing of women’s pain. White men may be bleeding power, but they’ll be damned if women get equality. And so they idolize clowns and cheer on a circus train.
Consider that the majority of American men never consider:
All the work poor women must do to keep children alive because their country doesn’t give a shit about babies after they’re born.
All the vitriol women must swallow to keep their jobs or reputations when a powerful man cuts her down to her appearance.
All the pain women must push down when men talk about dating like they’ve found a hack that unlocks human beings for free prostitution.
The hurt machine is a combine, designed to cut down so many women so that mediocrity like Donald Trump can keep standing.
The American Constitution didn’t even recognize us as human. Many of Trump’s most powerful backers still think women should never have been enfranchised.
The hatred of women is encoded into American operating software.
Men work every day on the internet, on the streets, in the office and in every other crevice of public life to remind women that they are things. They gaslight us and tell us our perspective is invalid. The media decides that women’s stories are inconsequential. They piss on every attempt we make to make a world that works better for everyone.
The hurt machine is a system that grinds women down from every possible angle until women have no choice but hate themselves as much as men do.
The media these past few days has had a field day entertaining rape culture denialists who insist that assault is fine and that every man does it.
Because that’s comforting, right? Better really if every man secretly agrees with that women are things.
But who knows, right? We don’t even ask.
And instead of interviewing feminists and scholars, the media continues to turn to campaign surrogates (don’t you love this term?) as if they would be the appropriate people to offer critical analysis.
Because that’s how misogyny works.
That’s exactly how misogyny works.
Misogyny is what happens when no one takes women’s systemic suffering seriously.
Democracy, though.
Yay.
